Olivier Faure has a dog, “who never leaves me, in Paris or in the constituency”, specifies the first secretary of the Socialist Party (PS). He therefore spends a lot of time in the street, walking him. So far, nothing very interesting. Except that since the signing of the agreement forming the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), “there is not a day without people stopping me to say thank you”. Thank you for participating in the union of the left. He almost apologizes for saying so, lest people think he’s making things up. “I assure you that I have seen it!” Ten years that I have worked with him, I had never seen that”, swears a close collaborator.
At the head of the PS for more than four years in relative indifference, the outlook on Olivier Faure therefore seems to have changed significantly recently. And it is, a priori, not only an impression of journalists. “Of course, there is a” Twitter effect, notes his collaborator. But the mailbox is overflowing with messages like never before, she explains, with supporting evidence. Rebellious people, but also ex-activists or former socialist voters who tell us they can reconsider joining or voting again for the PS”.
Let it go
His speech during the debate on the motion of censure tabled by the Nupes, on July 11, marked by his pugnacity, against the government and the National Rally (RN). Heckled, he was vigorously supported by two standing ovations from the Nupes benches. All the Nupes, the rebellious in mind. Has the union of the left changed Olivier Faure? Tells him no. But he has noticed the change in the way we look at his work. Faure says he is “liberated” from the burden of sparing everyone as first secretary. “The agreement with the whole left allows me to align what I believe with what I say, it’s easier. “Easier to have a speech marked on the left than on a left” of the real “, as Anne Hidalgo said during the campaign? “I’m from the ”government left”, I don’t need to repeat it in all tones. I just realigned myself with what we have always been: the party of labour, of the workers. »
Even his critics recognize in him “qualities as a talker”. “He has always been a man of good words”, describes, with a smirk, a socialist parliamentary opponent internally, on condition of anonymity. “It’s true that in the formula game, he is not clumsy, also applauds his new ally, the rebellious Alexis Corbière. I don’t want to play smart, but I had already observed over the past five years that Olivier Faure was not the slightly gray character he could let appear. »
“People are not rediscovering it, they are simply discovering it! »
For those close to him, “people are not rediscovering him, they are simply discovering him! “, as his close collaborator says. “It’s a fair return,” judge Pierre Jouvet, head of elections at the PS. “I completely recognize the Olivier Faure that I see in a meeting or in the national council”, affirms for his part Sébastien Vincini, in charge of the federations in the direction of the party. The two have been working with him since the Aubervilliers congress in 2018. The very one where he took the lead of the PS, still groggy from the electoral disasters of 2017.
His opponents note all the same that his speeches had not really printed until then. “In the polls, he’s one of those people who doesn’t have a lot of good opinions, not a lot of bad ones, but above all a lot of ‘I don’t know’. He has above all a problem of notoriety, remark, lucid, his collaborator. Which went hand in hand with the fact that the PS no longer interested many people… ”Shortly before the first round of the presidential election, she even recounts a period when, long before the thanks by the dozens in the mailbox, it was black complete: “We weren’t receiving anything. At 1.75%, we were no longer in the game. We were full of activists thinking it was over. »
PS back on the map
This is what Olivier Faure’s supporters insist on: his alliance strategy, his positions, have put the PS back on the map. “We were getting out of the heads of the French, believes Pierre Jouvet, one of the negotiators of Nupes for the PS. It needed an electroshock. » Generate interest again. As such, May 5 was already a signal. That day, the PS plays big. The party must validate or not the agreement which will give birth to Nupes. The debates are tense, the result promises to be tight. It is almost 11:30 p.m. when Olivier Faure plays his all out in front of the National Council (the PS parliament)… and almost 5,000 people live on social media. A delirious figure for the speech of the leader – little known – of a party that emerged from the presidential election.
Two days later, at the convention that launched the legislative campaign for Nupes, Olivier Faure delivers a risky speech in front of a largely rebellious audience… Who stood up to cheer him on. However, he does not hide the fact that in 2017, he thought – “not for long, but I thought so” – to be able to go a long way with Emmanuel Macron. Do not hesitate to address annoying subjects, such as the balance sheet of the Hollande five-year term, and in particular the Labor law “that no socialist has ever adopted”, 49.3 obliges. “It’s not the first time I’ve said it, it’s the first time we’ve noticed it. I wanted to be judged on what we are, what we carry, and not on the prejudices that people carry about us. »
Rocard-Mélenchon, same fight
“If he’s happy, so much the better. I do not have the ambition to be applauded by the rebellious, retorts one of his opponents. He has the faith of the new convert, and he converts often. “And to ask the question of his sincerity:” He has participated in all the coteries of the direction of the PS for twenty years! He voted everything under Hollande! He is today the most zealous of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s apostles… We are far from Michel Rocard, to whom he was close when he started out. » Don’t throw any more.
“Those who tell you that did not know Michel Rocard”, corrects Faure, who recalls that the former Prime Minister of the opening to the center entered the PS from his left. He recalls, again, this photo of Rocard and his team when he was at the head of the PS, between 1993 and 1994: “He is alongside Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Many intuitions were common to them, in particular on the relationship to the social movement. He recalls, finally, that in his last speeches before his death, Michel Rocard had denied Emmanuel Macron and Manuel Valls the right to claim themselves as heirs. “He was a deeply left-wing man. In his last column at World, he even speaks of the need to keep a certain revolutionary spirit. »
Round trips
Olivier Faure tries to defend his consistency and stresses that he fought internally at the PS under Holland “from the CICE” to obtain concessions from the government, during the Labor law or against the forfeiture of nationality. “When he was elected president of the socialist group in December 2016, it was already interpreted as a distancing from the Elysée”, recalls a relative. There have however been some back and forths, to put it modestly, in the strategy of his PS since 2018. Surreptitiously Macron-compatible the day after his election, he then defends the union as much as possible – but without LFI –, until to explain that there might not be a socialist candidate in 2022.
And then there is a kind of return to a more identity-based socialist position from the regionals of 2021, which saw the PS keep, to a large extent, all of its regions. “We may have been carried away by our local victories,” believes Sébastien Vincini. With the approach of the PS congress, the sudden support of Olivier Faure for a candidacy of Anne Hidalgo could pass for a maneuver. “Logical that it can be seen like that, loose Pierre Jouvet. But remember: everyone had closed the door to a single application. We couldn’t spend our time running after people who didn’t want us. ” Vincini insists: ” A congress is always the moment when we take out the flags, but basically, everything is already written in our orientation text. Indeed, there was already the objective of having a common program for the legislative elections, and common candidacies from the first round. Of which act.
PS: Tina
A new PS congress is already looming, at the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023. Like a referendum for or against Nupes? “Olivier Faure would like it”, announce his opponents… “They will try to reduce the congress to that”, contradicts Pierre Jouvet. In other words, it is not necessarily the strategy of alliance which divides the militants, but the grievances on the balance sheet of the first secretary are not lacking. Between 2017 and 2022, the PS certainly has as many deputies, but far fewer activists and less money. Those close to Faure do not completely deny this observation. “Makes him start the story at 1.75% of the presidential election. Except that he is accountable for this result,” said a rather pro-Nupes PS senator, speaking of a party that “no longer produces ideas, no longer works. »
The deputy of Seine-et-Marne finds the criticism unfair: “Those who say that, it is precisely those who do not work”, listing all the meetings organized on the socialist project (“the first for ten years”) and that he considers largely included in the Nupes project. No doubt the programs of LFI and the PS were less distant than has often been suggested, including in Europe. But the great clarification of the party’s positioning is not complete. There is, for example, a world between the Olivier Faure of May 2021, which says that the police must have a right of scrutiny over court decisions at the demonstration of the police in front of the Assembly, and that of June 2022, which disapproves of the formula “the police kill” by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, but finds that it has the merit of opening a debate.
And the activists in all this? Surprisingly, everyone is fairly in agreement: they are in a kind of in-between, often more realistic than enthusiastic, especially in support of Nupes. Difficult to create enthusiasm on a “humble” line, according to Pierre Jouvet, in a long hegemonic party, to which it is explained that there is no alternative. It is perhaps there, the challenge of Olivier Faure.